


Their Pain Became my Burden

by MalecAcid



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Ben Hargreeves Deserves Better, Ben Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Ben Hargreeves-centric, Bittersweet Ending, Dead Ben Hargreeves, Everything Hurts, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Ghost Ben Hargreeves, Hurt No Comfort, I cried while writing this, I'm Sorry, No Incest, POV Ben Hargreeves, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Sad Ending, Unhappy Ending, im really sad, im so sorry jdkzkxnzk, im sorry this is really sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:02:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28542984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalecAcid/pseuds/MalecAcid
Summary: It felt almost as if he was falling asleep for the first time in years. It felt almost as if he was seventeen again, lying in his tiny bed that he'd slept in since he was four years old, closing his eyes and drifting off for the very last time.Or, it felt like it was the last time.He closed his eyes as the light tore him apart bit by bit, and he didn't think he would open them ever again. Until he did.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Ben Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Diego Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Everyone, Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves/Jill, Number Five | The Boy & Ben Hargreeves
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	Their Pain Became my Burden

**Author's Note:**

> HI THIS IS JUST 1.7K WORDS OF PAIN DON'T LET THE SUMMARY FOOL YOU THIS IS VERY UNHAPPY AND I'M VERY SAD 
> 
> Title from no control by set it off bc I'm a set it off hoe

"At least this time I get to say goodbye." Ben said genuinely, trying not to wince as the light dragged him in piece by piece. 

He leaned forward hesitantly. "Can I… ask you a weird favor?" 

Vanya nodded, tears welling up in her eyes. "Anything." 

He paused, tilting his head up and to the side. "Can you hug me as I go?" He asked, immediately attempting to explain himself. "It's just been a long time since-"

He was cut off by Vanya rushing forward and wrapping her arms around him. He shakily moved his own to do the same, squeezing his eyes shut. It was nice. This was nice. 

"Tell Klaus something for me, will you?" He asked, pulling back to look her in the eyes before leaning in and whispering into her ear, squeezing her tighter and hanging on to the feeling for as long as he could. 

Going into the "light" or whatever it was that was dragging him in was… weird. 

It felt almost as if he was falling asleep for the first time in years. It felt almost as if he was seventeen again, lying in his tiny bed that he'd slept in since he was four years old, closing his eyes and drifting off for the very last time. 

Or, it felt like it was the last time. 

He closed his eyes as the light tore him apart bit by bit, and he didn't think he would open them ever again. Until he did. 

He opened them, and there he was, sitting in the chair his sister had been sitting in an immeasurable amount of time before. Sitting in the chair his sister had been tortured in, the chair he had possessed her in. 

It shouldn't have been possible, and yet… 

Ben moved to put his hand on the arms of the chair to help him stand up, but was startled when his hand only phased through. And that was weird. 

He had been corporeal almost constantly for the past two years, and suddenly he wasn't. It took him a little more than a second to readjust to his now incorporeal state. 

When he did, he realized that something was… missing. 

He couldn't _feel_ Klaus anymore. 

For the past seventeen years, ever since Klaus conjured him at his own funeral, there had been a connection, a bond between the two. It was barely noticeable, but it was _something_. Now, though… 

Now there was nothing. Ben couldn't feel anything where the normal pull to Klaus was. It was almost like his brother had just… disappeared. 

He stood up from the chair, and shook the thoughts off, though they wouldn't stop coming back. 

It felt just like when Klaus had went to Vietnam, felt just like when his brother had disappeared for ten hours straight.

So he wasn't necessarily _dead_. 

Ben's quick breathing had slowed down a bit at that thought as he moved to the window at the end of the hallway. 

So… he hadn't been dragged into the light. But how was that possible? It had only been what felt like minutes ago since he watched and felt bits of the light rest on his skin, pulling it towards itself. 

It didn't hurt, but it definitely wasn't pleasant. He had thought that he would be gone forever after that, so even if he did go into whatever the light was, he was just glad he was back on earth. With his family. 

Hopefully. 

All he had to do was find them. 

Which wouldn't be that hard, right?

* * *

Turns out, it was a lot harder to find six super powered assholes than he'd first thought it would be. 

He had tried to think about where they might be, but the only thing he could come up with was the president's parade, but it'd been hours since JFK was shot, and the streets were empty. 

The second place he thought to check was Klaus' mansion, but no siblings were there, only painful memories of feeling and being with a person that he would never be with ever again. 

Ben left the mansion and tried not to feel too discouraged. His siblings could be anywhere in Dallas, and Dallas was a big place. He would find them. Eventually. 

Probably. 

The second place he checked was Sissy's farm. He'd known that Vanya had stayed there for the month that she'd been stuck in the 60's for, so he figured that that place was as good as any to check. 

He was surprised, to say the least, to find hundreds of dead bodies lying in the slowly melting snow. 

He attempted to look further into the house, but it was empty and damaged beyond all repair. The barn was even worse, filled with snow and broken all around. 

He knew that his siblings had been there. Who else could've managed to fuck up a place this much? 

What he didn't know was what had happened, and where his family had gone.

* * *

Ben checked Luther's old apartment next, which turned out to be nothing, just like he expected. He knew that Luther had moved out a few days before, but he couldn't just not check. 

He shuddered as he walked through the door, but immediately turned his back and ran out at the sight of a person he didn't know changing. 

He didn't know why he expected anything different. Didn't know why he expected his family to be waiting for him with open arms.

* * *

After that, Ben just found himself wandering. He couldn't think of anywhere else to check, despite the fact that he was sure there were more possible places his siblings could be. 

It was almost as if his mind was blank, or fuzzy. At first, he thought that he was just convincing himself that his hearing had dimmed a bit, but now he wasn't too sure. 

He walked and walked and walked around 1960's Texas, finding no trace of his siblings. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind told him to walk down a certain street, walk into a certain house, and stand behind a certain man as he read a letter while sitting at his kitchen table. 

When he managed to read the words "Allison" and "last" and "leave," he knew that there was no chance that his siblings were there anymore. Just like he feared the first time Five had jumped, he was left behind. 

After that realization, he just wandered more. He never strayed too far from the FBI building, in case his siblings were to come back for him. 

Ben doubted that that would happen, though. He had been gone when his siblings had left, going who knows where into time while he had disappeared into the light. They wouldn't come back for a brother that had been dead for seventeen years, wouldn't come back for a ghost that had supposedly moved on to the afterlife. 

For his entire life as a ghost, he had felt the light pressing in to him, a constant reminder of what was truly on the other side of death, a constant reminder that he _was_ dead. Over the years that he had gotten used to it, it had just become something that was always there, an itch in his side or a tingling in his head. He had never gotten rid of the light completely, though. 

But after he read over the man's shoulder that his siblings had gone, it was almost as if the light was no longer there, no longer begging for him to walk into it. Almost as if it didn't want him anymore. 

For a moment he was almost relieved. He had always been scared to go into the light, as he never knew what was on the other side, but now he just felt numb. 

Even when the light was there before he read the letter, he felt numb to it. It was as if he just didn't care anymore. But now the light was gone, and he didn't have to worry about the tingling in his head or the itch on his side. He didn't worry about what that meant for the future. 

As time went on, Ben started to lose track of the days. He knew it had been a while, since his siblings had left, but he didn't know quite how long. It could've been days, weeks, months, years, it didn't matter. Every day and every night felt the exact same. It was like he was living in a never ending loop of absolute nothingness. 

Along with the sense of time, memories faded as well. Every once in a while he would walk past the only mansion in Dallas and feel a tick something in his mind, or see a girl with dark skin and glasses and feel his unneeded pulse speed up, but he didn't really know why. 

Eventually sounds became dull and lifeless. Everything that he heard was muffled, and he couldn't make any of the words that he actually heard out. Even if he could've, he wasn't sure if he would've been able to recognize what they meant, let alone put the sentences that they formed together. 

His sight ended up fading too, closer to the end. It really was the last thing to go, despite the fact that when you died the last thing to leave you was your hearing. Ben continued to wander Dallas Texas in the years past 1963, but he didn't know where he was going. His vision was blurred, and at that point, it didn't really matter any more. He didn't know what he was searching for, only that he was searching for something. 

He didn't stop walking until he got to what was considered the border of Dallas, and when he got there he would turn around and walk the other way. There was no purpose anymore. He walked to walk because there was nothing else for him to do, nowhere else to go. He just continued to fade even further, and continued to walk. 

And when the siblings eventually came back for their dead brother, they found that the spirit of him was already too far gone.

**Author's Note:**

> I cried and hope you did too :')


End file.
